
Class _J&MO/ 
Book tl«1-S6 



GopyrigM - 



_____ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



BY 



MARGARET CHANLER ALDRICH 



NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1910 






Copyright, igio, by 
MARGARET CHANLER ALDRICH 



All Rights Reserved 



THE QUINN & BODEN 00. PRE8S 
RAHWAr, N. J. 



©GLA2652" . 



TO 
MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE 



Elder serene, within whose heart of grace 
Wide kindred build an altar to our race, 
Now, through the vaulted splendours of thy mind, 
My fledgling verse a halting way would wind. 

Rokeby, 1910 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Poet 3 

January 4 

In February 5 

March 6 

Spring 7 

My Neighbour's Windmill 8 

The Horse-Chestnut 9 

In July io 

Haying n 

On a Picnic 12 

The Moon 13 

In Penobscot Bay 14 

Hospitality 15 

A Yellow Autumn 16 

In October 17 

In Winter 18 

The Mystics 19 

Faith 20 

I Am 21 

The Lambs 22 

- Forgiveness 23 

Authority 24 

In the Mamertine 25 

vii 



CONTENTS 

yAGE 

On the Palatine 26 

Agatha 27 

worldliness 2& 

Achievement 29 

Pasteur 30 

To Milton, Teacher * ... 31 

Shelley 32 

The Perfect Man 33 

The Sea to Alexander Agassiz . . . . ' . .34 

The East 35 

Nik-ko: I 36 

Nik-ko: II -37 

Nik-ko: III 38 

Venice 39 

Love 40 

Love's Masque 41 

Love's Test 42 

After Dreaming 43 

" He Also Wearing Flowers of Sicily " 44 

To an Improvisatore 45 

At a Concert 4*> 

Inspiration 47 

On too Small an Anthology .48 

Language 49 

Anticipation 5© 

Astronomy A.D. 1907 5* 

Silence 52 



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THE POET 

XO dwell with wisdom at each hidden source 

Till hastiest speech bears a divine impress, 

To raise an image breathing loveliness 

From words long levelled to a common course : 

This is to fathom the abiding force 

Within the numbered seas of sound, to express 

For nature, not for art, the varied stress 

By which her heart hath pulsed forth intercourse. 

All thought, all feeling, can be traced in sound 
By him who hearkens yielding to the spell 
And meekly echoing what he hath heard. 
But let him not within his verse be found, 
Lest the song grow confused, as when a shell 
Is moaning dumbly ocean's mighty word. 



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JANUARY 

ALONG the cross-roads drifted snow lies deep; 
No nearer traveller than the moon has tried 
To gain the turnpike from the windward side, 
And over buried fences she can sweep 
Unbroken shadows. In warm cedars creep 
The ruffled snowbirds, happy to abide 
'Mid clustered berries blue and orange pied; 
Out from old knotholes wary squirrels peep. 

No sound, no step, until a cutter turns 

With bells and laughter plunging through the drifts; 

Two lovers, tempted by the silent space, 

Break their first track together. Patient lifts 

Their horse his feet before them pace by pace, 

And, looking back, each with the omen burns. 



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IN FEBRUARY 

AGAIN departing Winter hastens Spring; 
Her lengthened days are here with softened air, 
Her flashing twigs, and birds who brave the glare 
Of suns not veiled by leafy sheltering. 
I catch new rhythm from out the shattering 
Of icy banks, from heaving meadows bare, 
From sappy droppings to the quickened mere, 
From oozing hurried into murmuring. 

Not yet her stores, her miracles unmask; 
Only by all she loosens and sets free 
Can we remember what Spring holds for earth. 
Before she bears the year 'tis hers to ask 
Much to depart, aye, and that joyously, 
Tuned to the pulses of approaching birth. 



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MARCH 

THIS is the month of bareness; washed and swept 
The hillsides glisten and the hollows lie 
In upturned barrenness. The sun, with high 
And eager winds, through rockbound woods has leapt, 
Searching snow caches which have quickly wept 
Away before him. Should the young shoots try 
To clothe the fields of March, they too must die. 
This is the fast when emptiness is kept. 

So is it in our lives when light and air 

Parch and disperse what they have warmed and cooled. 

So is it when our hearts, left stark and bare 

For a strange season of unfruitfulness, 

Show bravely in their unsought nakedness 

The furrow which an absent hand hath ruled. 



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SPRING 

WHEN shad-tree blossoms flutter on the air 
Caught in a breeze as fragile as are they, 
When liverwort hath starred the stoniest way, 
The poetry of Spring is everywhere. 
It dances up the hillside furrow's stair, 
It beckons thrushes to the topmost spray; 
Even the turtle sees 'twixt night and day, 
And in a pond'rous metre leaves his lair. 

For motion is the poetry of Spring. 

To other seasons rest and fruitfulness. 

Now every pulse beneath a dart of light 

Moves and is glad. Now through the smallest thing 

Is life transmitted with a radiant stress. 

The smile of Spring is motion infinite. 



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MY NEIGHBOUR'S WINDMILL 

XHE river washes past the marshy brake; 

Beneath the isle of meadows streams have found 

A way to meet with rocky springs and slake 

Primaeval tangles. Moisture to the ground 

Gives bubbling loams; softly smooth pastures quake; 

The waving cinctures, made by vines unbound, 

About the groves their breezy pleasures take, 

While reeds and water ply melodious sound. 

Green, all is green for centuries, then lush 

The lilies rise, fair plangent colours blow, 

And fragrance sweet. The watery acres flush 

A garden riotous, and in the glow, 

Stemming the tide, a young magician stands, — 

The winds from Shattamuck his airy wands. 



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THE HORSE-CHESTNUT 

THE flowering chestnut whitens into bloom, 

And to and fro a ministry of bees 

Moves heavily, embossing pageantries 

Of golden life upon a bridal loom. 

Up to no other forest tree they come; 

Honey of fruit their pirate argosies 

Amerce, and all sweet garden industries 

Equip where their rich wings are pressed for room. 

What tincture brings them to the chestnut's gall ? 
When orchards ripen, and the graceless burrs 
In unattended forests offer food 
To man and beast, from these a stone must fall. 
Let blending science, like a warm bee, brood, 
And say what nurture at her calling stirs. 



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IN JULY 

ALL day the wind has reached us from the South, 
An inshore breeze advancing like a tide, 
And like a tide covering the country-side 
With its own nature. From the river's mouth 
Come salty levels where the hot corn's drouth 
Laps at their dampness, and the meadows dried 
Before the haying softly breathe. There cried 
A wood-dove : " Rain, rain cometh from the South.' 

O cloud, desired by all whom thou didst pass, 
Are we thy goal? Thy wayward tent of gloom 
Hath drifted up o'er many aching farms. 
Are we to catch the fire of thine alarms? 
Thou answer'st me with thunder's shatt'ring boom 
And sheeted water beating thirsty grass. 



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HAYING 

LONG fragrant lines beneath the reapers sway 
And fall as though in gentle sacrifice 
To suns beneficent. The wafted spice 
Rises until high heaven is in the hay, 
Till distant townsmen on their pavement say : 
" Now the wide mow is laden with the price 
Of all our scheming, still the fond device 
Of Nature feeds the world in the old way." 

And on the fields where cradles have descried 
The order of her progress, where the cocks, 
Like hives of sweetness, for her coming wait, 
Passes the mighty wain of Harvest's state. 
Now all hands sweep the last load to her side, 
Which up to beam and roof-tree proudly rocks. 



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ON A PICNIC 

READ from a page where rhymes at leisure lie; 
Let neither sound nor meaning harness verse 
To animation sped by the rhythms terse 
Of battle numbers. With slow measure ply 
Th' unwinding of our musing's treasure. By 
This still, cool river all our minds immerse 
In pastorals, to energy averse, 
Whose wistful maids and shepherds " Pleasure " cry. 

Led by the piping passionate of these 
Far-off musicians, we drift into years 
Whose heat, whether from sun or temperament, 
Is long accomplished. Late above the trees 
The moon in greater magic softly steers, 
Closing our dreams, our day, with wonderment. 



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THE MOON 

EVEN the wind which stirs our fragrant air 
Drifts toward the sovereign coming of the moon. 
Thou dawning-of-men's-dreams art rising soon 
This summer night when love is everywhere. 
All men await thee : some on fragile stair, 
Struck between saplings, some where shallows croon. 
Over the oceans which thy light hath strewn 
The dreamers of adventure broadly fare. 

Why art thou sovereign to the human heart? 
What life, what death, falls to us in thy beam? 
Why do our spirits to thy heights remove? 
It is because thou canst not wake, but art 
The world of sleep, and so, oh Moon! of love, 
Which is to man a sweet, effulgent dream. 



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IN PENOBSCOT BAY 

SAILS on the sea, and on the meadow sails. 

Bright butterflies, a mimic fleet and swift, 

Above ripe salty grasses dip and drift 

To vanish in the balsam-scented trails. 

More slowly, where the dim horizon veils 

Her flapping canvas, comes through clinging mist 

A lazy Indiaman, who all the year can lift 

Her wings to palm-fringed ports whence spice exhales. 

She brings our summer hint of rest unknown 
From islands where the sun unheeded streams, 
To us who husband every blossom blown. 
She moves in gliding ease through sunset clouds; 
Upon her decks are phantoms and day-dreams; 
When she departs our youths are in her shrouds. 



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HOSPITALITY 

A BIRD of passage flutters through the corn; 
Unwonted is its note and flashing breast, 
A stranger to the branching groves where nest 
The ministries familiar. Wert thou borne 
From flocks migrating this September morn 
By wayward winds on mountains in the West? 
Here must thou, in a balmier air opprest, 
Fly sadly, crying softly, and forlorn? 

Hither to die thou cam'st; fatality 

Of death approaching made thy warbling yearn. 

Bereft of flight and song, unto my mind 

Enhanced by thy dependence, fallen, I find 

Thee beautiful and still upon a fern, — 

A handful claiming hospitality. 



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A YELLOW AUTUMN 

A SUMMER'S green has fired into fine gold. 
Each lambent tree gives light unto the sky. 
Though smooth gray mists around the forest lie„ 
Within, effulgence gleams on ev'ry mould. 
Beneath coined leaves all avenues are stoled; 
Down patterns many a birchen treasury 
With the crisp brilliance of the hickory, 
And here an oak has loosed his sterner hold. 

Bright, shadowy, or burnished like strong ore r 
Pale with long shining, never two the same, 
The trees this gleaming curtain raise between 
Summer and winter. Their content they pour 
In a last pageant, when across the scene 
Steps hunter man, afoot for feathered game. 



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IN OCTOBER 

THE sunbeam of an early autumn eve 
Strikes past my eye and hovers on the shelves 
Tooled with a dimmer gold, then lower delves 
An instant in the children's curls, to leave 
The last light there. Soon we are dark. Reprieve 
Touches our hands and eyes. The restless elves, 
Dropping their games, have softly ranged themselves 
For such a story as the hour conceives. 

This is th' unseeing time when all the blind 
Commune with us an instant. Eyeless things 
Meet with our sightlessness. Afar the mind 
Together leads us, quickened by a breath 
Which fears not tales of darkness or of death. 
Now clear, now soft, a rapt piano sings. 



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IN WINTER 

A VISION of the Spring delights mine eyes. 
Above, in nearer sequence to the sun, 
I see unfrosted lands, quick rivers run 
Rippling with light and warm with ecstasies. 
Look up! Within this garden of the skies 
Taste the soft airs and gather, one by one, 
Bright flowers blown where Winter hath not spun 
An icy mesh, where no white snowflake dies. 

Thou didst not know that in the sun's wide wake 
Such gardens hung, enchanted and serene, 
Uncalendared upon this seasoned earth? 
Look up ! as children watch a bubble's birth ; 
For many a glittering paradise is seen 
By one on whom a fleeting light doth break. 



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THE MYSTICS 

THEIR love distils the mind of God. They trace 
His presence throughout earth's dissolving airs, 
Weaving what whosoever follows, shares, — 
The faithful outline of His vast embrace. 
No sound too faint for them to interlace 
The voice of light. The rune of ancient prayers, 
To such inspiring confidence, declares 
In filmy clues the wisdom of our race. 

From their tried hands raised in devotion's wreath 
The fires of life descend on all beneath, 
And men enclosed within the truth revealed, 
Although they neither see nor feel the light, 
Are of some blinding torment softly healed, 
While unawares the Mystic prays for might. 



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FAITH 

FAITH, with discerning eyes and answering heart, 
Stands steadfast in our midst, prophet upright 
Of the Invisible. We watch her smite 
The closing clouds asunder. " Yea, thou art 
And naught shall longer intervene, as part 
To part must draw I wait thee." Slow in sight 
To those who listen gazing, cohorts bright 
Approach, and lo ! earth's altar fires start. 

But when great spirits pass within our ken, 

Or truths are written large which Faith first spelled, 

By them towards the Unknown beyond impelled, 

Further her arc of vision rests again. 

One God; lives sweet with love, Faith hath beheld; 

Even now she hales us peace and deathless men. 



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I AM 

SOMEWHERE within him each man born hath heard 
The voice of God saying: " Behold, I AM." 
Whether to us the great assurance came 
Or we have caught the echo of a word 
Vouchsafed another, always there is stirred 
*Desire to be, and each repeats, " I AM." 
Then even from him floats forth his Maker's name, 
Who in self-love the Maker's image blurred. 

O cry of being, mighty antiphone! 

Since Moses, clothed in meekness, from the flame 

On Horeb turned to lead his nation, thou 

Hast never ceased to thunder unison 

'Twixt God unseen and man, crying to know 

Who sends him forth : who but the great I AM ? 



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THE LAMBS 

THE altars of retreating worlds you blenched. 
Long years are white with multitudes of flocks 
Passing to sacrifice. Your legend locks 
Itself in every tongue of man. Intrenched 
In deepest tenderness, gold has not wrenched 
The palm of preciousness. Each yearling knocks 
A fresh advent of Spring. Naming you rocks 
A child to dreams wherein her tears are quenched. 

Children, the Spring, tenderness, purity, 
The lambs wind upward past obscurity 
Of earthly emblems till celestial light 
Shepherds their pasture. In their fold has trod 
The living Christ: down from supremest height 
Comes our command, Behold the Lamb of God. 



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FORGIVENESS 

I SAW Christ waiting where a sin had stood, 
Made manifest in answer to the prayer 
Of one who wished all consequence to bear 
Arising from his acts which were not good. 
And this, the Truth, I dimly understood. 
None can forgive himself, we must declare 
Each other free. Forgiveness is the stair 
By which to climb from hate to brotherhood. 

When men whom I have injured still resent, 
And so perpetuate my wickedness, 
Christ, to whom all relations are revealed, 
Can take their place toward me, if I repent, 
Until they learn that all forgivings bless 
The world in evil consequence repealed. 



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AUTHORITY 

JV1 ISTRESS of all within the heart enthroned, 

To God or sin thou art obedient, 

Being thyself the meek embodiment 

Of each man's passion, honored or disowned. 

Where power claims thee patient faith is stoned 

And helplessness defrauded. Well content, 

The guilty seek Authority's consent 

By their reflection to themselves condoned. 

Then let us husband generous holiness, 
Worshipping goodness, since we must appeal 
Unto our own most cherished quality. 
The best God has made clear we may reveal, 
His law emerging through our earthliness 
Until we image his Authority. 



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IN THE MAMERTINE 

W^HILE blood and fire, entering through the eyes, 
Remain to steep and burn remotest dreams, 
The violence which with creation teems 
Accomplishes what its intent denies, 
To faith and love essential victories. 
All you will know of me when these drawn streams 
Are dry, is that I worship Christ : so gleams 
His Name through me among your memories. 

'Tis thus we conquer, silent and dispersed, 
One human mind invaded by each death 
Embraced for Christ. The murderer witnesseth 
The prayers invoked for him by severing hands, 
Which, stranger than a Caesar's crass commands, 
Persist among the voices which have cursed. 



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ON THE PALATINE 

A GHOSTLY ministrant, this martyr rives 
My consciousness. His words left me content, 
I cared not what his resurrection meant. 
But now its startling- import slowly drives 
Through recollection, and my heart conceives 
Gladly the hope that past and present, blent, 
Are only parted by the dark descent 
Of death. So every Christian slave believes. , 

By bringing resurrection unto mind 

These martyrs best disclose the mean domains 

Of dissolution. What a grave contains 

Is earth's or mine : but whose this winged seed 

Which past destruction makes desire to speed 

Toward worlds where each is happy with his kind ? 



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AGATHA 

HER chiselled mind holds niches of high thought 
Veiled like her eyes, as though the spirit host, 
Not man, purveys their light. An outer post 
Of heaven her selfless life; a balmy port 
For many to whom God and heaven are naught, 
Who see not Christ, in whom her sins are lost. 
Safe from impoverishment she tenders most 
To these, too starved in soul to bring her aught. 

Beyond the stars her mind and soul commune; 
But her sweet heart hath fluttered in the hand 
Of every sorrow, every joyous boon. 
Careless of all but love, she doth frequent 
The gates of life: Alas! these open stand, 
She may pass through them on some mercy bent. 



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WORLDLINESS 

YOU move alone, lovely beyond belief, 
But lives are in your train with vast arrears. 
Now you have greeted me and gone, appears 
How spectral is your splendour, and how brief; 
For admiration with a shining sheaf 
Of conquests, gleaned from hoarse applauding years, 
Is shadowed by wronged love whose urn of tears 
Waters with with'ring salt each filched leaf. 

Strange exiled woman, powerless to hold 
Yourself from calculation, — to its low 
And sordid pulse your blood is running slow. 
What is your beauty, where perfection's part, 
If thus consenting you through life can go 
Without the sanctuary of a heart? 



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ACHIEVEMENT 

SWEET are the hours, and of unearthly might, 

Lying betwixt two great activities. 

Here Nature stores the rare capacities 

Of rest and compensation. Here insight 

Is first vouchsafed of an impending height 

Whose outline in the subtle shadow lies 

Cast by Achievement. " Thither " the soul cries, 

And toward undreamed of sequence bends her flight. 

Gladly she ceased from toil, thinking to know 
Conclusion's respite. Purpose, far beneath, 
Flashing immensities, strikes THEN on NOW. 
Quickly delivered from the little death 
Of holding aught as finished, hours like these 
Dawn on endurance in the clasp of ease. 



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PASTEUR 

DEATH enters through the infinitely small. 
The unseen and the disregarded hold 
Her charnel secrets in a fertile mould, 
Until the infinitely patient call 
Them forth with faith which magnifieth all. 
Patience descries how Death is waxed bold, 
How Life herself, by Ignorance controlled, 
Worketh the widening of destruction's thrall. 

Chief son of patience stands Pasteur, the good, 
So vowed to life that under hideous forms 
He knew her beauty and proclaimed its norms. 
He drew the sting from fang of maddened brute, 
Gave purple vintage to the paling fruit, 
And rest, safe rest, to fevered motherhood. 



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TO MILTON, TEACHER 

LEARNED in the mind of Greece, and with a soul 
Mettled to lead men far against their creeds, 
How school thy will to meet the pettish deeds 
Of youths who falter careless of the goal? 
Thou taughtest nephews orphaned, when the whole 
Of Europe was to tremble 'neath thy screeds. 
Thou hadst the eye compassionate when feeds 
The sparrow, though it mark the planets' roll. 

Day after day small theorems to scan, 
False quantities in tongues thy stately art 
Could bend to living speech, nor was this all : 
What if thou wakedst, having been with Pan? 
The lyric of the morn must wait or fall 
Into the text of a school-master's part. 



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SHELLEY 

A MORTAL singer, thou alone hast played 
Supernal themes with so resolved a stroke, 
The wind through echoing them to praise awoke, 
And many lived who were no more afraid. 
The challenge of thy piercing fancy made 
The heart of Nature thine, but thy sweet yoke 
Of hon'ring song a brooding worship spoke 
Which Beauty safe from desecration laid. 

Less man to thee than flying shapes untaught, 

And least rapt Virtue, her abounding shrine 

Where homeliest things are steeped in sacred wine, 

Ignored defiance. Now her children read 

Thee victim of a piety which thought 

God further from His works than from their creed. 



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THE PERFECT MAN 

SPRING forth, O perfect man, into the light! 
Long wooed by poets and by faith descried, 
Why in the realm of words dost thou abide, 
Why phantomlike elude life's checkered span? 
Oft has it seemed thy tide toward us ran, 
When with us briefly dwelt our loftiest pride, 
A beauteous child who, scarcely sickening, died, 
As though maturity exhaled a ban. 

Thine is the earth, not ours ; we, seizing part, 
Do hurt the whole. Perfection, wishing all, 
May all possess. Perchance thine hour is here ; 
Wilt thou come singly, as a god draws near, 
Or is the Perfect Man a nation's heart? 
Where rides an army will thy bugles call? 



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THE SEA TO ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 

UPON my breast the Faithful cast their sin, 
Yet plunge their children in my healing tide. 
I purge the past because all futures glide 
Toward the land when waves and ships come in. 
From filmy motes, which idly shine and spin, 
To caverned whales with offspring at their side, 
The lives of earth are mine; light kingdoms ride 
Palm-crested where my coral workers win. 

Once in solution did I hold the earth, 

And slowly have I let the islands go, 

And slowly will I take them back once more. 

I have receded until man should know 

He, too, is of the waters in his birth 

And doth stand upright on an ocean's floor. 



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THE EAST 

A CHILD sat by me who would find the East, 
Upon a little map, and learn its tale. 
Before my task knowledge and surmise fail: 
Where and of what confinement is the East? 
An ounce of fragrance from her mystic yeast 
Gave many a populace a martyr's grail. 
Most potent was her essence to entail 
Renown on magus, chirurgeon or priest. 

While in the scholar's universe one thought 
Embalmed by Eastern tongues, though it pay toll 
In twenty Western minds, is never less; 
While fragments speak her an intrinsic whole; 
While every man who prays the East has taught, 
Conquest and chart her bourne cannot confess. 



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NIK-KO: I 

WHAT noble trees ? what vast and stately groves 

Are these which with solemnity prevail 

Until it dwells at Nik-ko? It behooves 

The pilgrim, moving shrouded in your veil 

Of deep and reverence-compelling shade, 

O gentle cryptomerias, to own 

The balmy charity which your dim aid 

A cloak upon his weariness has thrown. 

Toil-marked and travel-stained, slowly to pace 

Between your rows whose ancientness 

Makes nothing of one life — in such a place 

All is renewed to calm and quietness. 

Nik-ko! Your groves no traveller leaves behind, 

They shade the distance of each grateful mind. 



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NIK-KO: II 

HERE not an acre, but a mountain-side 
To Holiness and Peace are dedicate: 
The waterfalls, the river's rushing tide, 
A valley and its hills all consecrate. 
Would you see Nik-ko? 'Tis a holy land, 
Meet for long sojourn. Like the saints of old, 
Who thought strong walls of paradise did stand 
In every sunset cloud, so we are told 
That Nik-ko is not common earth, but lies 
In its rare beauty for the Buddhists' good. 
From far they come and feast their faithful eyes 
With its nobility. When one hath stood 
Upon Chuzenze's mountain, he hath been 
Nearer to heaven than the dead have seen. 



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NIK-KO: III 

UPON the hillside long majestic stairs 

Lead us to courts where princes have been laid 

To rest. Here bells and gongs with sombre airs 

Announce the holy doors. Strange feet are stayed 

Upon the threshold, but your eyes may see 

The molten glory of the inner space, 

The soaring dragons on a golden sea, 

The carven lotus blooming with the grace 

Of living fragrance. To successive fanes 

The guardian leading, here and there the tone 

Of priest, for pilgrim praying, sounds the strains 

Of earthly weakness; but o'er all is thrown 

So great a beauty supernatural 

The stars in heav'n could worship and not fall. 



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VENICE 

NOW thundering an advent on my walls, 
Now pleading - as a prisoner for release, 
Now sibilant of travel and surcease, 
The tide of my dominion sweeps and falls. 
Vacant the silent splendour of my halls; 
Shrouded in dreams of conquest and increase 
The dead Venetians lie, sealed unto peace 
From which no rival resurrection calls. 

But these my populations wide and free, 
These night-long voices sounding my desires, 
These leaping mirrors to the sun's bright fires, 
Unwearied in their passing to and fro, 
Bearing the unseen winds they come and go : 
The ceaseless, countless footsteps of the sea. 



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LOVE 

AROUND our world is drawn the cord of love; 
From whence or wherefore none do understand, 
Nor can men weave the palpitating strand, 
Since none have found an end or break thereof. 
Sometimes in arching starry loops above, 
Sometimes coiled close, a life-destroying band, 
Most dear when shut within a small child's hand, 
Love takes or leaves us as it finds a groove. 

Love hath both depth and height; we have seen those 
Who writhe forever in consuming throes, 
And we have seen the Blessed stand in flame 
Which, entering them, shot forth a beauteous light, 
Making the world of shadows gleaming white. 
These last it is who give all love one name. 



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LOVE'S MASQUE 

DANCING it overwhelmed my youth and out 
Again, with melody and rhythm, then fled, 
I dancing on, content. The years have sped, 
Off'ring to all men the same blinding rout. 
An hundred quick'ning measures twine about 
The hearts which shadow mine. Over the dead 
Sweet songs of mindfulness are nightly said, 
And to high chorals the young, marching, shout. 

Who are the mystic train? Whose feet, what song, 
Through time unchallenged every sense may move 
To hallow service? What the measure breathed 
Which like a smile upon our lives is wreathed? 
" Behold," they said, " we are all those whom Love 
Hath need of : he hath marked your cadence long." 



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LOVE'S TEST 

MY song is briefer than a summer's day, 
Clipped at both ends by your not hearing it. 
Each stave, disjointed as a blind man's way, 
Halts before sense and stumbles over wit. 
I fondly echo strains which you have heard, 
So doth your soul inform monotony. 
Within your name I find a cryptic word 
Which to my life is strangest alchemy. 
Oft have I loved, but never have I been 
As now, a moon to one high, moving star 
Whose satellite by her is never seen, 
While in her light he travels long and far. 

Yet, more than worship, give I mortal love, 
Since to myself this star I would remove. 



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AFTER DREAMING 

XHOU hast been with me once again in dreams, 
Those fastnesses unsealed by Time or Death, 
Those treasuries where night depositeth 
The coin which our day-time loss redeems. 
Such brief presentment of existence seems 
Half torture when the loved one vanisheth, 
But wholly joy when back he wander eth, 
With voice and smile where recognition gleams. 

Thou hast been with me once again; from whence 
Our hearts, our minds approached, we cannot tell. 
Perchance to every dream a different road, 
Else should we make of one a sweet abode. 
I wake, and we have been together : hence 
Flies spectred Separation to his hell. 



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SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



" HE ALSO WEARING FLOWERS OF SICILY " 

WHAT crowns thee best in hours of fond acclaim? 

I see soft-scented chaplets at thy feet 

Fall till each step is wreathed. Some vineyard sweet 

Hath stripped the vintage of its shade. Whence came 

These petals, if no garden is aflame 

With thy report? What mellow herbs discreet 

Have crushed their leaves of healing, to repeat 

Upon the air thy life-potential name? 

Aloof thy spirit from the praise confused, 

Unclaimed thy ghost by all this day can bring; 

But on thy heart a book, and pressed between 

The words, which were our friends when men abused, 

Rest violets we gathered wandering 

Long before nations had discerned thy mien. 



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SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



TO AN IMPROVISATORE 

LET me hear music when thy soft voice breathes 
A poem on the breathless summer's night. 
Our minds below th' horizon with the light 
Perchance toil yet; but here the spirit sheathes 
Itself in rest, and round the spirit wreathes 
Music, such dreams as make stern thought take fright. 
Call golden numbers down; beneath their flight 
The plodding heart with youthful rapture seethes. 

The Kings have spices poured from many a jar 

Which, in their falling, oft reminded me 

Of noble, learned poems, filling far 

Both ear and air with riches. But one rose 

Makes countless slaves by perfume each man knows. 

A rose, Enchantress, let thy poem be. 



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AT A CONCERT 

PLAY to us, for the heart of music stirs 
Similitude which, like possession, bears 
The fruit of earthly joy. In her wake fares 
Man's spirit, singing what his soul avers : 
That she is his, and he supremely hers. 
Play to us lofty, superhuman shares 
Of concrete sound, and clustering pliant airs 
From space where filmy life with life concurs. 

Make us enduring harmonies receive, 

Lead us to arches of the universe, 

Spans undisturbed which traverse human brains 

As light cleaves water, leaving it alive. 

Mind, heart and sense in melody immerse, 

Until through them high heavenly order reigns. 



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INSPIRATION 

I KNOW not what my eager hand should write ; 
To an unspoken will I feel it curve, 
A servant greater than my thoughts deserve. 
Through me unbidden crowd the lines to-night. 
Are there, then, unlaid dead who stoop to trite 
And godless jargon? Or must I preserve 
Some fragmentary memories which swerve 
Aside from Truth, mere shadows of her might? 

Not knowing what I am, how can I tell 
To which veiled power a strange sentinel, 
Words by my tongue and fingers come to be. 
Only by what is written can I guess 
When I have echoed wandering emptiness, 
And when the passing of life's mastery. 



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SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



ON TOO SMALL AN ANTHOLOGY 

HOW can we name the poems we love best? 
How bind within one little volume's lore 
Those gleaming treasures which do move us more 
Than garnered lives to heav'n's reward addressed? 
Wide lights which show us ages stretched at rest, 
Strong music which the poets ever pour 
Into the hours of silence, — can we store 
Their perfect singing between east and west? 

How ill they fare together, clipped and seamed 
Into a tiny sheaf, which should have teemed 
With one great name and all he said to earth. 
Three verses out of Omar: this is mirth, 
And 'tis his laughter answers, " Let him be 
Whose measure is a trite anthology." 



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SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



LANGUAGE 



WE cannot tell what word will catch the light 
And hold it as warm amber holds the sea. 
From hand to hand we pass the sleeping sprite 
Not knowing which a brooding nurse could be ; 
Through sound and number we pursue the flight 
Of thought and image, till our senses drown 
In medleys beauteous of songs and sight. 
But all we seize is to confusion grown, 
Timid and chill. We wake with alien night. 
Yet words there are seeking their master hand, 
Live things with gaits responsive to his might, 
Moving with him a clear, spontaneous band. 
To these men listen, wishing they were words 
To whom a poet could bring blest accords. 



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SONNETS FOR CHOICE 



ANTICIPATION 

IF I could share the vision of the stars 
And gaze down endless shafts of vivid light, 
I would not look on earth's insensate wars, 
While the surrounding heavens in peace are bright. 
Searching for life among the spinning moons, 
Or for its source in their controlling suns, 
Man's isolation and the petty boons 
His heart demands ring idle as his guns. 
The splendid darkness of the Universe, 
Those worlds which met extinction in their course 
To hang obedient without futile curse, 
Leave human systems ignorant of force. 

Sublimity around us shines and dies; 
When shall we compass her profundities ? 



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ASTRONOMY A.D. 1907 

YET owing nothing to the human will 

Do you remain : no trembling star hath known 

Obedience to mortal mind. Alone 

Amid created hosts you, Sovereigns still, 

Arise and perish without man. While ill, 

And good life, death, flame, cloud, wind, wave, and stone 

The earth-born mind hath harnessed, soft have shone 

Unnumbered worlds remote from fault or skill. 

If swiftly now caught up by light we run, 
If through the portals of inflamed Mars 
Gaze on the measure of each tireless stride 
Across immensity, what spirit need deride 
The dream of man's dominion over stars, 
His coming to the dayspring of his sun? 



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SILENCE 

SOME thoughts are clear to us, although estranged 
From the familiar channels of our speech. 
No haunting phrases their deep meaning teach, 
The vaster orbit of their light is ranged 
Beyond the nether air we have deranged 
With clam'rous voiges. When their swift rays reach 
Our world of sound and shadows, they impeach 
Its unrealities and leave them changed. 

Too far such thoughts, too cold for you and me? 
Nay, through a child's true mind, the deepest well 
God gives our thirst, we watch their progress free. 
And oftentimes a poet's minstrelsy 
Within a limpid mirror can compel, 
Untold, the Image of Infinity. 



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52 



r 



MAY 28 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



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